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AIRTRAFFIC-2017/11/01
ANDERSON COURT REPORTING
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THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
SAUL/ZILKHA ROOM
THE FUTURE OF AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
PARTICIPANTS: ELAINE KAMARCK, Moderator Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Effective Public Management The Brookings Institution THE HONORABLE JAMES H. BURNLEY Partner, Venable Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation JIM COON Senior Vice President Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association ERIC FRANKL Executive Director Blue Grass Airport PATRICIA GILBERT Executive Vice President National Air Traffic Controllers Association
* * * * *
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P R O C E E D I N G S
MS. KAMARCK: Great. Well, good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming.
Thank you for coming so promptly. There’s, as I can see many of you have discovered, there’s
coffee and pastries in the back there.
My name’s Elaine Kamarck. I’m the director of the Center for Effective Public
Management here at Brookings and we’re part of the Governance Studies section of Brookings.
We’re the smallest part of Brookings, but we like to think that we’re the most important part of
Brookings and have the most impact.
And I think today we’re going to talk about a topic that not many people know
about, but a lot of people care about because a lot of Americans fly. And it is an issue that I
actually encountered way back in 1993, 1994, when I was working in the White House for Al
Gore and I was managing something called “Reinventing Government.”
At that time, there were only a handful of nations in the world that did not run air
traffic control through the government. One of them was New Zealand. New Zealand, I used to
joke, exported sheep and government reform ideas because New Zealand was, not just in this
area, but in all sorts of areas, New Zealand was always way ahead of the curve.
And sort of inspired by the them and looking around the world in 1995, we wrote
and sponsored H.R. 3539, which would have turned air traffic control over to a government
corporation funded by user fees. Well, the legislation didn’t do too well, to say the least, even
though it was probably the only thing that Ronald Reagan ever agreed on. (Laughter) And
once that legislation died, we went on to some more incremental reforms at air traffic control
and hundreds of reforms in other parts of the government.
I do remember that at one point we counted it as a major victory that we reduced
the procurement cycle for IT from some ridiculously long amount of time to four months. So we
counted that as a victory.
So fast forward 18 years and imagine my surprise to read about Congressman
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Shuster’s bill H.R. 2997, and to see that air traffic control reform is a big item on the Trump
agenda. Now, I don’t know how Vice President Al Gore feels about this issue, but in a funny bit
of historical symmetry it may be the only issue that Al Gore and President Trump agree on.
(Laughter)
Of course, the devil in the details, and I’ve forgotten a lot of what I knew on the
topic once, so I’m very happy to be able to moderate this panel today and to try and reacquaint
myself with the pros and cons of this issue, which I hope you will do, as well.
Since 1995, a lot has changed in the world. There are many more countries
using nongovernmental or hybrid organizations to do air traffic control. But many of the big
issues -- What is a core government function? Can the government run innovation technology?
-- some of the big issues still remain. And so we’ve assembled a group here this morning to
explore the issues and I’d like to introduce them.
First of all, we have Jim Burnley, who is a partner at Venable and a former
secretary of transportation. He is one of the nation’s foremost experts on transportation and
aviation to be concise. During the Reagan administration he was deputy secretary of
transportation and general counsel of the department. And he served as secretary of
transportation from 1987 to 1989.
He continues to be a respected and active participant in this community. As
outside legislative counsel to American Airlines, Mr. Burnley played a key role in crafting and
passing the Emergency Airline Transportation Stabilization Act in the days after September 11,
2001, to help save the disaster-challenged U.S. airline industry. And I suspect that was a pretty
challenging time and I suspect a lot of people were glad you were there.
He co-chairs the Eno Foundation NextGen Working Group, which is focused on
major reform and restructuring of air traffic control.
Next is Jim Coon, who is senior vice president, Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association. Mr. Coon has spent much of his career working as a senior congressional staff
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member, most recently in the role of staff director for the U.S. House Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, and majority staff director for the House Aviation
Subcommittee.
His other congressional roles have included positions as majority professional
staff for the House Aviation Subcommittee, legislative director for U.S. Representative John
Duncan, Jr., and legislative assistant for U.S. Representative Robert F. Smith.
He has most recently held the position of executive vice president for the
National Air Transportation Association. At various times in his career he has held the post of
director for congressional affairs for both the Boeing Company and the Air Transport
Association. Welcome.
Eric Frankl. Eric was selected by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Airport
Board as executive director for Blue Grass Airport. I love the name of that airport. In this role
Mr. Frankl is responsible for the overall business operations, air service development, safety,
security, planning, and development of the airport. He served as interim executive director
since February 2009.
Prior to his appointment, he was director of airports for the Toledo-Lucas County
Port Authority and he had overall responsibility for financial performance, operation, and
administration of both Toledo Express and Metcalf Airfields in Ohio.
Last but not least, the blonde on the panel, you can always tell us, Trish Gilbert.
May I call you Trish?
MS. GILBERT: Yes.
MS. KAMARCK: Formal name Patricia, has served as the National Air Traffic
Controllers Association’s seventh executive vice president since she was elected in September
of 2009. In March, she was reelected by acclimation to a second three-year term. And in 2015,
she was reelected to a third three-year term. You’re very popular with your folks. Gilbert is the
first in NATCA’s history to serve three terms as executive vice president.
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That is not, however, the first time Gilbert and NATCA President Paul Rinaldi
have made history. Though NATCA’s two top positions are elected separately, in 2009, they
campaigned for their respective positions as a team, which I take it has never been done before.
Working as a team with President Rinaldi, Trish has helped lead and oversee
NATCA’s comprehensive efforts to build successful working relationships with the FAA, DOT,
the industry, the AFL-CIO, and members of Congress. She serves on many boards in the
Washington area and she is, again, like our other panelists, a well-known aviation expert.
So we have a fabulous group here. I’m going to ask each of them to open up
and we will have a little bit of discussion from them, a little discussion among themselves, and
then we’ll turn to you for questions and some comments.
So I’ll just start with Jim, okay, who’s the closest over there. And one of the most
commonly heard criticisms of plans to reform ATC are that we’re handing control of vital issues
like safety, taxation, over to the airlines. Can you speak to those and speak to why this is so
important right now?
SECRETARY BURNLEY: I will, but let me first, Elaine, both thank you for the
chance to be here and acknowledge that you and vice president and Gore, Dorothy Robyn,
who’s in the room today, were a group of visionaries in the early ’90s. And you understood that
if the United States did not address what is a fundamental anomaly, and I’ll come back to that
point in a moment, that we were going to face what has, in fact, happened since the early ’90s,
and that is we have fallen ever further behind in the modernization of our air traffic control
system.
There is no question, particularly given the way Chairman Shuster’s bill in the
House is written, about delegating safety responsibilities. Safety responsibilities have been and
will remain a core FAA function. The FAA does not own and operate U.S. airlines, but it closely
regulates the safety of both how the planes are built that they buy and how they’re operated,
they certify the pilots. They have a pervasive safety regulatory scheme over private companies.
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Chairman Shuster’s bill proposes to remove air traffic control from the FAA and
set it up in a nonprofit corporation and have the FAA continue to closely regulate all of the safety
aspects of its operations. But his bill recognizes what you all recognized in the early ’90s, and
that is that you’re trying to run a 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week, incredibly complicated business
and you’re trying to do it within federal procurement and personnel rules that are written for
entirely different structures and programs. They’re written for grant programs. They’re written
for people who do regulations. They would not and do not contemplate the kind of dynamic
operation that the FAA has.
So as a result of the fact that despite your vision, you were not able to convince
Congress to move in this direction in the early ’90s, as we sit here this morning in our terminals
all over the country our controllers are using these paper strips. And I brought quite a few with
me and I’ve asked that they be handed out. I hope -- I don’t think I had enough for the crowd,
though I didn’t see all of you, I should have brought more, but I hope you got one.
Now, Nav Canada, a nonprofit corporation the Canadians created in 1996, to
which they transferred air traffic control, completely got rid of these strips in 2003. Our
controllers still use them in the terminals. The FAA does have a procurement underway that
promises that in the 88 busiest facilities -- and, Ed, I don’t know if you’re on that list or not -- they
will get rid of paper strips by 2028. By 2028. And Ed, if you have the misfortune to be number
89, then well into the second half of the 20th century it looks like your controllers will still have
the opportunity to use paper.
Now, there’s a lot of happy talk. The FAA has reformed. The FAA has gotten
itself righted on air traffic control procurements in particular and on the workforce. It ain’t true.
But don’t take my word for it. Let me just give you a quick sample of recent inspector general
reports on these subjects, just in the last year and a half.
January 11th of last year, the inspector general of the Department of
Transportation put out a report entitled, “FAA Continues to Face Challenges in Ensuring Enough
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Fully Trained Controllers at Critical Facilities.” Trish will reaffirm that today we have fewer fully
certified controllers in our facilities than we have had in 28 years. There’s no excuse for that.
Four days later, January 15th of last year, the FAA, according to the Office of the
Inspector General, “The FAA reforms have not achieved expected cost efficiency and
modernization outcomes.”
Then August of last year, the IG said, “The FAA lacks a clear process for
identifying and coordinating next-gen long-term research and development.” So we’re falling
behind on R&D, as well.
November of last year, the Inspector General put out a report entitled, “Total
Costs, Schedules, and Benefits of FAA’s Next-Gen Transformational Program Remain
Uncertain.”
February of this year, an audit report from the IG. “While FAA took steps
intended to improve its controller hiring process, the agency did not effectively implement its
new policies.”
October 18th, this month, the most recent report from the IG. “FAA has made
progress implementing next-gen priorities, but additional actions are needed to improve risk
management.” Additional actions are needed to improve risk management.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, there’s no excuse for this except our inability as a
country to come to grips with the fact that we’re trying to run an operation, incredibly complex,
and it needs to move away from World War II radar as its core system to GPS and other related
systems. We’re trying to run it like it was a government program.
And 60 other countries in the last 25 years have decided to separate air traffic
control from their government, and there are different models. The Canadian nonprofit model,
again, is the model the House bill was based upon, but there are other models, as well. What
they have in common, what they all came to recognize, is trying to run air traffic control within
the constraints that go with government programs is not going to get you where you need to go.
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So with that, Elaine, I’ll let others have it. Thank you.
MS. KAMARCK: Good. Okay, well, thank you. And at some point, Jim, I’d like
you to come back, or somebody, to explain what this means to the flier. Okay? Explain what
this means to somebody on the airplane. Okay? But we’ll get to that.
Okay. Jim, I know that you and your counterparts in business aviation have had
some problems in the past with this approach. And I was wondering if you could speak from
both the public policy point of view about air traffic reform and also from the point of view of your
members’ interests and what you think of this.
MR. COON: Sure. Thank you very much, a pleasure to be here. I think I will
start out by suggesting that today we have the largest, most complex, and safest air traffic
control system in the world. That’s what we have today. Let’s ask ourselves what is it exactly
we’re trying to fix before we start down this path.
I think the only thing that has remained consistent over the years is that the
airlines have been pushing for this. That’s about it. You know, Elaine mentioned ’94/’95, I was
on the receiving end of these proposals. I got a chance to review these proposals. I got a
chance to put together congressional hearings on how poorly the FAA was managing the
program at the time, and they were. So when we start to talk about how screwed up things are,
that was about 25 years ago, to be honest with you.
And, again, I think it really comes down to the flier, to the passenger, and to all of
the users of the system. Today we have a public use system that works well for everyone. You
know, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association represents small, private aviators who have
their own aircraft. And I can tell you that they have been consistent over the years on why this
is not good for them. There are many reasons for that.
And as Elaine mentioned, you know, the devil’s always in the details. There are
a number of risks and unintended consequences with turning over or handing over this to a 13-
member board of special interests whose fiduciary responsibility under the legislation is to the
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entity. So decisions are going to be made on ensuring that this entity, this air traffic control
system, remains in the black. And so just think about what decisions are going to have to be
made in order for that to happen. You know, it’s going to be where the revenues are most great
for the airlines and their counterparts is where they’re going to invest equipment. Right? It’s not
going to be in the small towns, the small communities, where general aviation flourishes.
I can tell you that these other countries that Jim spoke about, general aviation
has gone -- precipitously declined in Europe. And it’s because of the imposition of fees and
more costs that have been imposed on these private fliers who can’t charge themselves $25 to
bring their own bag on or charge themselves $5 to bring a pillow on. So this is the kind of thing
that happens to general aviation, which is so uniquely American. The thing that has not
occurred here, once again, is that there has been no consensus, no collaboration on what
things work and what don’t work for all users of the system.
So I’m sure most of you know what NextGen is, right? It’s modernization of our
current air traffic control system. But what people don’t really know there are really six major
platforms of NextGen. Okay. ADSB, that’s a surveillance system. That’s a GPS surveillance
system where you can track airplanes. Okay? There’s a performance-based navigation
platform, a system-wide information management platform, Data Comm, terminal flight data
management, and NextGen Weather. Those are the six major platforms of modernization.
ADSB, fully deployed in 2014 across the country. In 2014. The problem is that
the airlines can’t use it because less than 20 percent of their fleet is equipped with that ADSB
equipment. They don’t want to spend $4 billion to equip their aging air fleet.
Performance-based navigation, it’s partially deployed and on schedule to be
deployed. And the problem with this, this is like approaches in poor weather and that type of
thing, the problem with that is that only 1 percent of the airline fleet is equipped with that
equipment.
SWIM, system-wide information system, that’s really the backbone of NextGen.
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Fully deployed in 2015.
Data Comm, this is kind of a computer system from the ground to the airplane. It
takes out a lot of human error and it’s already in place today at some 55 airports. The problem
is, again, only 20 percent of the U.S. airline fleet is equipped to use that equipment.
The terminal flight data management system, these are the paper strips that Jim
talks about. Now, they’ll be fully deployed, there’s been a contract, by 2023, not 2028. And the
fact is that these paper strips, the reason they’re not in every major control tower today in the
United States is because the airlines agreed in the prioritization of NextGen of where these
paper strips really mattered. And they don’t really -- they don’t affect delays when you’re sitting
on the aircraft. It’s all for the controllers. In fact, a lot of controllers like paper strips. So really
we’re just going to take these paper strips and put them on a digital screen and it’s going to be
the same thing, they’re going to do the same thing, except it’s going to be behind glass instead
of on a paper slide board.
And then obviously NextGen Weather gives a common weather picture across
the country. That’ll be fully deployed in 2021. That’s NextGen.
So when the proponents suggest that we’re using World War II technology, that’s
not really true. And when we look at Canada, I would argue that people need to go look at
Atlanta and Chicago and JFK and LAX to see a modern tower. You go to Canada, who’s the
shining ATC beacon on the hill, and I think I read yesterday or the day before that they’re
spending nearly $200 million to upgrade their World War II radar system.
So there are a lot of things that we can do to bring efficiencies and do all of these
things, but what we need is a system that works for everyone. And we have to ask ourselves
what are we trying to fix? So that’s the modernization. That’s where the airlines started this last
round of debate was with modernization.
And then when we pointed out all these things of where NextGen actually is in
the process, they moved to delays. We’re losing hundreds of millions of dollars because of the
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delays in the system. Well, go to the DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics and they will tell
you that the airlines cause 50 percent of the delays in the system. Flight scheduling, crew
scheduling, and maintenance issues, none of which this legislation will address. Thirty percent
of the delays in the system are caused by weather. So maybe somebody needs to go talk to
God and figure it out, but that’s 80 percent of the delays in the system that we have today that
won’t be fixed by this bill, by turning this over to the airlines ultimately.
So, again, we have to ask ourselves what is it are we trying to fix? The
Congressional Budget Office says it’s going to score it $100 billion over 10 years. The
Congressional Research Service is concerned about unconstitutionality; came out a couple
days ago suggesting this would trigger sequestration. The Government Accountability Office
has suggested that a transition would actually slow down modernization. The American
Conservative Union is opposed to this because it’s not really privatization. There is no
innovation in this proposal. There is no competition in this proposal. It’s basically here are the
keys, go at it.
Consumer groups widely opposed to this. I mean, elected officials across the
country, mostly from rural America; many of the airports, especially the smaller airports across
America, are opposed to this. So that’s where we are.
Again, and I just want to finish on the fact is that we have the largest, most
complex, safest air traffic control system in the world. And Trish’s people do an amazing job
every day to make sure you get from Point A to Point B. And I would always argue over my
years that the air traffic control function of the FAA has always been the best operating function
of the FAA. Right?
So that’s kind of where we are, the general aviation community, who is really not
a commercial interest, but provides billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars to the
economy every year. Thank you.
MS. KAMARCK: Great. Eric, we’ve heard two sides of this nicely laid out. Let
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me ask you, how would some of the reforms under consideration affect airport operations and
particularly smaller airports like yours?
MR. FRANKL: All right. Again, thank you for having me here. I think I may
represent a more unique or complicated perspective a little bit, so let me just talk a little bit
about who I want to represent today, which is really no one. So after following these two guys
it’s going to get harder coming down the line here. Both of them had great arguments and I
think they’re persuasive.
So let me start with what my perspective is. First of all, most of my general
aviation folks at my airport, Jim’s members, are opposed to this. So I’m certainly not
representing their interests today because I have a different perspective, a slightly different
perspective.
And again, as Jim said, I think the airport industry as a whole hasn’t taken a
position one way or the other. Although if I had to guess, just from my own colleagues, I would
suggest that probably the majority of them would oppose this, as well, as is the current state.
And, of course, even my own board, I report to a board of directors, and I think
my own board is probably split. So I’m really kind of a man without a home. In fact, I may not
be able to go home after this. (Laughter) But let me talk to you, I guess, how I view this whole
issue.
This has been going on, and I think we would all agree, 30 to 40 years, on and
off discussion, actually predating deregulation. And in the past, I probably would not have been
a supporter because I did feel like the federal government was able to handle the task, do it
safely, do it efficiently. We have great, and I think everybody on this panel would agree, we
have great FAA staff: efficient, they care about what they’re doing, they’re good at what they
do.
Although I think over this particular time, over this last five years or so, I have
become more sympathetic to spinning off air traffic control to some other form, but not
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necessarily for the same reasons. And I guess I look at it a little bit, again, from the airport
perspective and what we do and how we have to work with the FAA and our federal government
on a yearly basis.
So, again, I don’t know that -- I think typically airports would take the position that
we care about what’s on the ground. We’re looking at pavements. We realize that even if we
are gaining some efficiency in the airspace above us, at some point we have an issue on the
ground, and so we can’t really separate off one component of this and not look at the others.
And to Jim’s point, which I do wholeheartedly agree, I think there probably could
have been and should have been some more collaboration in this discussion leading up to now
with the different stakeholders. It doesn’t mean that we’d all get what we want. It doesn’t mean
that we’d all be happy with that in the end. But I think that that was a weakness from the current
legislation.
That said, I guess my sensitivity, why I’m more sympathetic this time is because
of the struggles with the federal government. And when I say “the federal government,” I do not
mean the FAA. I mean their bosses, the legislators in the Executive Branch.
I started in the industry in 1989 and I didn’t know much about the industry. I was
young and didn’t know much about how grateful I should have been to have a five-year
reauthorization, FAA reauthorization bill, how important that was, how exciting that was at that
time. And back in those days, of course, you would always have budget squabbles, but you
would usually have a budget. You’ve had 12 appropriations bills. They would go through, pass
the House and the Senate, and the President would sign them.
And, of course, there was always disagreement between the parties. But I guess
in this last 10 to 15 years that has become worse and worse and worse. And the question is
whether you believe that will continue on its present path or get better.
And to the extent that Congress can’t prioritize, Congress can’t agree, we
continue to have short-term reauthorization bills. We struggle to get through appropriations bills
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every year, even on the airport perspective where we receive grants through the FAA. Our
passengers are taxed, those taxes to towards air traffic control, as well as airport improvements.
And the way the FAA facilitates that has been unbelievably painful and cumbersome over the
last I wouldn’t say 10 years, but certainly the last 5.
My concern is not only how that -- that that will continue on. And as our industry
overall, whether it’s general aviation, corporate aviation, airlines, continues to grow and evolve
-- and hopefully it will, because I think that’s a great sign for commerce around our country and
around the world -- will our government be able to keep up? Because I think they’re struggling
now.
And, again, this is not a reflection on the FAA, both the management or the
controllers, because I think they do a great job. But I’m very concerned about whether they will
be able to continue to do that. And as the system grows, whether that system gets more and
more expensive.
And, you know, having a $20 trillion debt out there, which comes and goes,
depending on the administration or how important that is, and I’m not expert in that, but I got a
feeling that puts pressure on a system that’s already complicated and difficult.
So I think I’ve become more sympathetic to trying to do something differently for
the good of the industry because under the current system with the federal government
controlling how the FAA operates, how they’re funded, to say nothing of the acquisition process,
I’m not sure that we won’t be further challenged in the future.
MS. KAMARCK: Okay, thank you. Trish, let’s go to you. I mean, your folks
literally have our lives in their hands and we are grateful to them every single day. Talk about
the current situation. Is it sustainable? What do you see happening?
MS. GILBERT: So, thank you, Elaine, and I really appreciate being here. One of
the things I want to add to the bio because it’s the thing I’m most proud of is 21 years as an air
traffic controller at Houston Center.
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MS. KAMARCK: Oh, yeah, actually, and I’m sorry.
MS. GILBERT: No, that’s okay. I just want to make sure that people --
MS. KAMARCK: I saw that yesterday and was very impressed with the fact that
you were actually an air traffic controller.
MS. GILBERT: And I haven’t done that in a while since I’ve been in D.C. They
don’t let me pop back into the Houston and separate airplanes, which is a good thing.
So 21 years I have worked in the system. I came in in 1988 before I finished
being an air traffic controller. Once I got elected, I came to D.C. and can’t do that any longer.
And I do miss it greatly, but I certainly stay engaged at facilities across the country and discuss
this issue. It is the main topic of discussion with our membership across the country. And we
also represent controllers in the contract tower world, 100 facilities there, which is private
industry, for-profit. And we know of all the concerns that we have to deal with there, so we’ve
never been supportive of a private, for-profit system. That is where opposition has been in the
past.
Certainly sitting in government has its pros and cons, but as a workforce it is a
somewhat comfortable place to be. So you can imagine our perspective and our significant
concern when we are looking at the possibilities of status quo not being able to sustain what Jim
has said, which is the biggest, most complex, safest system in the world. We are proud of that,
but we want to be able to sustain that. And we do not believe status quo can get us there.
We were supportive of USATS back under Vice President Gore and that
initiative. We have been opposed to the for-profit models. But we were ready to have the
dialogue with Chairman Shuster and certainly Ranking Member DeFazio when I think everybody
started to get to the point that the funding uncertainty was becoming so significant that we have
to do something different. And that’s when those discussions started, I believe, and I will be an
advocate for many attempts to bring in all stakeholders to see if we could get to a position
where all could agree that there is something better and what could we all agree that is.
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I think there is a lot of entities that started from no and stayed on no. And I think
there are entities that need to maybe put down their pitchforks and come into the room and
figure out what are the next steps instead of trying to scare the flying public and recreational
users and general aviation on reform being something that’s going to be the end to general
aviation or the end to Medicare as of yesterday’s memo that came out from the Hill because
we’ll see such significant sequestration impacts if this were to become law. I think we need to
get together and figure this out because the impacts are significant to the flying public. The
impacts are significant to general aviation if we do nothing.
If we continue under 28 extensions of an FAA reauthorization, short-term stop-
and-go funding bills, then we are not going to be able to maintain our equipment in this agency,
we’re not going to be able to maintain our staffing levels where are at a 30-year low, and we’re
not going to be able to improve our infrastructure, and we’re certainly not going to be able to
appropriately integrate new users, like unmanned aerial systems and commercial space and all
of the pressures that are now on government to do more and do it with less on a 24/7 operation
that is all about safety and efficiency and capacity. And if we don’t figure out reform and stability
in funding, we’re never going to meet all those challenges.
We continue to see the chipping away of our system. We have airports out there
that the FAA’s not able to build new towers for because there’s no money for that. So we end
up running -- a lot of Jim’s members fly in and out of airports with no air traffic control service,
which is not a good place for us to be as a country. That would be unheard of in other
countries.
We do see a decline in general aviation already because of a lot of different
issues, so I would argue the fact that that is not the case because of this bill. I think the decline
in general aviation is already occurring due to the financial needs of pilots with regard to being
able to fly through the system. So I don’t think you can tie it to this reform. I think actually you
could see general aviation grow under reform because we’ll be able to put more resources into
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communities, rural communities, that need service that don’t get it now.
I would argue that we don’t have controllers out there that are keying on paper
strips. I mean, it’s like asking somebody you get no phone or you get a flip phone, you’re going
to take the flip phone. But if you can get an iPhone, you want the iPhone. And that’s where we
need to go as an industry.
So our concerns are real and our position is all about the system. It’s nice to be
a government employee and I think our members feel that way. However, I think they care
more about the system and are willing to step out there and have the dialogue and support
legislation around reform, even if it take us out of government, if it’s going to create a system
that’s going to be able to put appropriate resources into the system; be able to train and hire the
right amount of individuals to keep the system safe and running and robust; to be able to
integrate new users, and that includes keeping rural America robust and support behind there.
So we’re very interested in this dialogue. We’re very interested in continuing the
dialogue, whether this particular bill moves forward or not. We think there’ll continue to be a lot
of positions taken as status quo becomes more and more unattainable as, you know, we are in
a short-term extension only till December 9th for a funding bill and this FAA reauthorization bill
until March. So the dialogue’s going to continue. The stress on the system is going to continue.
And the impact to those that fly through the system, if they’re not seeing it now,
feeling it now, they will start to feel it more and more as we start to see increased issues at
airports with regard to delays. We are seeing some of that in some of our metropolitan areas
where we don’t have the appropriate staffing or equipment to deal with the capacity issues. And
then certainly able to staff our facilities in rural America has become an issue, as well.
MS. KAMARCK: Great. Well, I mean, let’s start, I want to have some of us
answer each other, but, Trish, you raise a very interesting question. Suppose Congress were
normal again. Okay? Let’s suppose that we didn’t have this dysfunctional Congress, we didn’t
have budget making by continuing resolution, and the threat of sequesters and shutdowns
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always there. Let’s suppose we had a Congress that actually functioned. Would you still see
the need for reform in this area and perhaps as far as taking this out of the government?
MS. GILBERT: Our concern and our big issue is the funding stability. So, no, if
we were getting appropriations bills passed before October 1st and they were an actually full-
year appropriations bills and we were seeing FAA reauthorization bills that were three, four, five
years in length, there’d be some stability there. The FAA would have the ability to hire the
people they need, to plan appropriately, modernize. While, Jim, I agree we are working really,
really hard to modernize the system and I think we’re doing well, but I think we’re doing well in
spite of the funding uncertainty. And we shouldn’t be doing anything in spite of. But if we were
normal again, then I think we would be in a different place.
I sit on the Air Club of Washington and we introduce a history moment at every
luncheon when we have our speaker. And our historian was asking the group what do you
suggest for an historical piece that we could provide? I said how about an historical on the last
time we had an appropriations process where there was regular order in Congress? (Laughter)
How about that for a history moment?
MS. KAMARCK: Boy, that is a really a heavy-duty comment about the world in
which we live.
The two Jims, I think you have different views on NextGen. And you seem to
think it’s working well, that NextGen has been successful modernization. Do you agree with
that?
SECRETARY BURNLEY: Well, my opinion’s irrelevant. I do disagree, but for
those of you who wandered in late I won’t do it again, but in the last 18 months, over and over
again the Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Transportation has said it’s not working
well. It is falling short. It is not being implemented properly nor is controller training being
implemented properly. So, Elaine, it’s don’t take my word for it.
And I want to speak, if I could, to one other point that Jim made and that is that
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somehow where air traffic control has been spun off from executive branches of government,
there’s nothing but unmitigated pain and suffering on the part of general aviation. There’s a
gentleman named Bernard Gervais, who’s president of the Canadian Owners and Pilots
Association, the Canadian counterpart to Jim’s organization. And this just appeared the other
day. He says he particularly chaffed at a column written by AOPA President Martin Baker in the
September education of AOPA Pilot, the magazine of Jim’s organization, in which Baker wrote,
“General aviation in Canada no longer thrives and it’s unfortunate to see pilots there don’t have
the same options we enjoy here in the United States.”
Gervais sent an email to Baker, the GA is alive and well in Canada and its
15,000 members “are largely satisfied with the service we receive from Nav Canada and all of
them take exception with the idea that Canadian GA is dead.”
Gervais got an immediate response from AOPA Pilot Editor-in-Chief Tom Haines.
He said, “The column by Baker was written before COPA,” the Canadian group, “but made its
position clear during meetings at Air Adventure and AOPA ‘will stop painting with such a broad
brush when referring to the impact of privatization on other nations.’” That just appeared August
of ’16.
A few months before that, the head of the Canadian Business Aviation
Association also debunked the kinds of criticism that we’ve heard this morning about the impact
on business aviation and other general aviation in Canada from having a nonprofit system. And
he said, “That’s not the story at all.” He said, “The organization,” meaning Nav Canada, “has
turned into a little bit of a jewel for Canada.”
So, again, don’t take my word for it. The general aviation folks in Canada say a
nonprofit system that’s been in place for 21 years is working very well for them. And they do
have stable funding. They do have a diverse board, as Chairman Shuster proposes in his bill to
have.
The notion that the airlines somehow will dominate this is nonsense. There are
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13 members on this board. The Secretary of Transportation appoints two of them, the whole
board appoints two others, the big airlines get one and the little airlines get one, Jim’s
organization and counterparts get one, manufacturers of GA get one, NATCA gets one, the
pilots union gets one. So the airlines basically, big airlines and little airlines, they’ve got 2 seats
out of 13. And all I can is if the other 11 are so incompetent and useless that they let those 2
dominate everything, that’s a whole different problem and I don’t have an answer to that. But
that’s not what’s happened in Canada and that’s not what’s going to happen here.
I mean, Trish has framed this issue properly. We have had in the last decade 28
extensions of FAA reauthorization. Twenty-eight in a decade. And some of them have been for
a few weeks. You cannot manage multibillion-dollar procurements and manage a complex
system the size of ours in that kind of a structure. It does not get you the outcomes that the
American people deserve.
MS. KAMARCK: Let me throw this to both Jim and to Eric. A lot of your
concerns seem to be about rural America and small airports and, of course, private pilots. Talk
a little bit, is there some way that you see reform helping or is it just your fear that the prices are
going to go up and the big airlines are going to essentially hurt general aviation? I’d like to hear
from both of you on it.
MR. COON: Yeah, well, you know, recently, in recent years, commercial air
service in rural America has been reduced by about 20 percent. And so, yeah, we certainly
have concern there. Again, as I had mentioned in my opening remarks, fiduciary responsibility
of this board is to the entity. There are not a whole lot of revenues coming in compared to the
CATX airports and the 100 largest airports in the country.
And so decisions are going to be made to invest where the airlines fly. And it’s in
the best interest of the controllers and the pilots unions and all the other commercial interests to
get in line with that because the last I checked, and this is a laudable goal, unions are there to
protect their -- grow their membership and increase their benefits.
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So I see nothing in the proposal before us today that’s going to suggest how this
system is paid for. There’s no details in there. It’s just all to future Congresses. I’m concerned
about my colleague here to my left. I don’t know how airports are going to be funded. I mean, I
think the Airport Council International has expressed the same concerns and that there’s not
enough investment for airports in this proposal.
I’ve lived through these battles on the Hill with respect to extensions and, yeah,
they’re not pretty. But I’m pretty sure that air traffic controllers and everybody else in the FAA
have gotten a paycheck. So let’s really put all this fodder away and figure out what is it we’re
trying to fix?
What is it we’re trying to fix? Why did the airline industry go to the White House
and tell the President we want control of this system? We want to control this system.
I don’t know, this proposal doesn’t say how we’re going to fund this thing down
the road. Where’s all -- how are we going to fund more in NextGen by this proposal? Nobody
can tell me that.
So, again, it comes down to the fundamental question. Right now, again, I’ll
have to say it again, we have the largest, most complex, safest system in the world. Okay?
And turning this over to a board I’m not sure is going to help all of the users.
Funding? Let me give you an example. This is not a funding issue that we have
here. In 1980, the FAA had a $3.2 billion budget. Today they have a $16.1 billion budget with
less air traffic to manage today than they had in 1980. I mean, so people need to understand
that it’s the passengers that are paying the freight of our system. The airlines have a fuel tax;
we have a fuel tax.
I find it ironic that the airlines are out promoting H.R. 2997, which prohibits fees
now on general aviation, and suggesting that we are not paying our fair share in their big
advertising campaign. So you have to ask yourself what’s going on here?
So these are the risks and unintended consequences that general aviation has,
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as well as rural America and mayors and airports and consumer groups. There’s no details in
this proposal.
Let’s talk about the protection of access. In the legislation the protection of
access so all aviation can fly anywhere they want to at any time, go get a lawyer. If the board
makes a decision, the Secretary of Transportation gets to review that decision based on safety.
And if there is no safety impact, then the proposal goes forward. If you don’t like it you can’t go
to your congressman anymore because this is a private, not-for-profit corporation, you have to
go get a lawyer. That’s in the bill.
So these are the kind of things that general aviation and everyone else is
concerned about and that’s why this bill can’t in part get to the floor. There’s no consensus.
There is no consensus. And that has been the problem since the early ’90s all the way up to
today. Nobody has gotten in a room and sat down and said what’s the deal here, instead of
trying to jam something down the throat.
And the only thing, again, that has remained consistent over these years with
everybody up here is that the airlines have supported this. That’s it.
MS. KAMARCK: Eric?
MR. FRANKL: So the only thing that I would add to that, well, maybe a couple of
things, is this system we tend to look at in terms of ATC or airlines, and it’s really much broader
than that and it’s a really, really sensitive ecosystem starting at some of these smaller
community airports, which is where most people learn to fly. So any change can’t really be
done in a silo. It has to be -- it really does have to be done collaboratively because I think some
people don’t understand the impacts. And it’s just like any other biological system: you take
something out over here, it impacts it down the line.
In the case of particularly our smaller airports, we do struggle and part of this is a
funding issue for the airports themselves, how this is going to play out. Congressman Shuster’s
bill I think adds more AIP funding for airports under this bill to support those airports. But by the
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same token, if we don’t have an appropriations bill that functions annually or we don’t have a
reauthorization bill, it’s become very difficult to get projects done.
By the same token, we can’t really -- we don’t want to inhibit how someone
becomes a pilot or what mechanisms they use to become a pilot. There are so many things that
happen in rural communities that a small general aviation pilot is responsible for or takes the
lead on. And that is some issues from medical transplants and all kinds of things that people
don’t really think about. So, again, to me it’s really important to look at the whole system.
We have an issue going on in our industry right now in terms of what some
people perceive as a pilot shortage, and I believe it. And part of that is because of how
expensive it is to become a pilot. But if we don’t have pilots in rural America, it’s going to affect
the system down the road. And I think we have to try to look at this.
And the one thing that I would agree with Jim on is I feel like this wasn’t
collaborative from the beginning. And I will give them credit, I’ll absolutely give Congressman
Shuster credit, this iteration is better than the one before because they did listen, and they
deserve appreciation for that. But I think there are so many tentacles out there and I think the
fear at least my general aviation community has is because they don’t know. And not knowing
some of these things they can’t judge whether to support it or oppose it, so they’re going to
basically oppose it.
MS. KAMARCK: Before we go to the audience, any comments? Yeah, Trish?
MS. GILBERT: Yeah, I would want to add a couple things. And just so we’re
clear, I love you, Jim Coon. (Laughter)
MR. COON: Uh-oh.
MS. KAMARCK: Uh-oh. (Laughter)
SECRETARY BURNLEY: I love him more. (Laughter)
MS. GILBERT: And, you know, it’s just a professional disagreement. I would
say as far as funding of the system is, you look at what Nav Canada does, and I know
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everybody says we’re 10 times bigger and we are, well, that goes directly to the funding of the
system. They do 14 million operations a year and they bring in significant amount of revenue.
They’re actually able to rebate some of it back to the users. So we do 141 million operations a
year here.
So I would think based on weight and distance to air carriers and business
aviation funding -- doing that into the system as well as general aviation would continue to pay
the fuel tax at the pump, which would go into the government entity that oversees this new
federally chartered corporation, that there would not be this need to make that decision as a
board to start cutting away at services in rural America. I just don’t believe that’s going to
happen because that’s where our aviators come from, that’s where our air traffic controllers are
trained. For us to continue to have a robust system we’re going to need to continue to invest in
rural America, and I don’t think we’re doing that now.
So the whole idea that rural America is protected today under status quo is not
correct. They are the first ones to be cut back: hours of operation, no service if there’s none
and the traffic grows there, or looking at reduction in staffing at those facilities.
And, yes, I am a union and we do care about benefits and pay for our members.
I will tell you that we have missed some paychecks under the furlough scenario. But making up
for that is we have our controller workforce working mandatory overtime not just here and there,
but New York TRACON’s been working mandatory overtime, 6 days a week, 10 hours a day, for
15 years. We’re stretching our system too, too tight and we need to put appropriate resources
behind it.
And it’s not that we’ve never said that the funding isn’t adequate. What we’ve
said is the funding is uncertain. It’s unpredictable, it’s stop-and-go. It’s not about the dollar
amount. It’s about two months, three months, one year, half a year. Oh, we haven’t had a full
year in a while. So that’s my issue.
MR. COON: I’ve got to chime in here. I think that if we struck Title 2 of H.R.
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2997, we’d have a 5-year, long-term FAA reauthorization bill. That would work and it would take
care of Trish’s problems.
MS. KAMARCK: Well?
SECRETARY BURNLEY: I haven’t had a chance to speak on the rural America,
and if I might for a moment.
MS. KAMARCK: Yeah, go ahead. Sure.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: Let me just say first, don’t take anybody on this
panel’s word for what’s in the bill. Go to the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s
website and read the bill for yourselves. Read the parts of it you’re most interested in. Because
all of these broad statements you’ve heard up here about what is and is not in the bill, frankly,
are not correct, and you can go look it up for yourselves.
MR. COON: Please look it up.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: The fundamental threat that Trish just alluded to
aviation service, both commercial and general aviation, in rural America is the status quo.
William Swelbar of MIT released a study a few months ago in which he documented the fact
that on the scheduled routes of the airline in this country over the last 10 years, the airlines have
had to add to the schedules 33 million minutes. The way Trish’s members keep the system
safe as traffic continues to grow and outgrow the resources if by very gradually slowing it down.
The airlines are required by DOT regulations to publish on its schedules. And, in
fact, since that regulation was put in place a couple of decades ago, the accuracy of the
schedules and the on-time performance compared to the schedules shot up very dramatically.
So they take that seriously.
And what is happening is, as Mr. Swelbar documented, is it’s taking ever longer
incrementally to fly from Point A to Point B. Those 33 million minutes require the airlines to
have 1,000 extra pilots. So where do the big airlines get the pilots? They get them from the
regional airlines. That’s the feeder.
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The regional airlines are the airlines that serve smaller communities in this
country. Well, they’re caught in a double whammy because just a few years ago, Congress
enacted legislation that dramatically increased the number of hours of training, flying in the air,
that a commercial pilot has to have. You have to have 1,500 hours to qualify. Now, you can
argue the merits of that one way or the other, but it’s a fact. And it has caused the number of
pilots in the pipeline to dramatically decrease.
So the regional airlines are finding the big airlines need 1,000 extra pilots
compared to 10 years ago just to fly the same routes. The supply of pilots for the smaller
airlines is drying up because of these very demanding and expensive training requirements.
And as a result, the regional airline of Alaska Airlines, Horizon, in mid-summer had to announce
it was cancelling 6 percent of its routes to smaller communities. It’s the status quo, ladies and
gentlemen, that is the fundamental threat to air service in rural America.
MR. COON: Okay, I have to chime in here.
MS. KAMARCK: All right, last word, then we’re going to go to the audience.
MR. COON: I have so much going through my head right now I don’t know
where to start. There are a number of reasons for the pilot shortage, a number of reasons of
which this proposal before us today won’t fix. So let’s just get that out on the table.
I think that there have been many areas where the FAA has contracted out
functions that have worked very, very well, like the Flight Service Station contract, like the air
traffic control Contract Tower Program which has been lauded for years and years and years.
So there are things we can do. We can consolidate old facilities that don’t need to be
maintained anymore. We could save a lot of money, believe me. So you could save a lot of
money there.
You could take -- Congress could take FAA out of the sequestration proposal if
they wanted to. They could implement biannual budgeting or at least kind of the contracting
process that DOD uses. All these things can be done, none of which this bill is going help.
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So I just want to -- I hope you do go and read the bill. I’ve read the bill many
times. And so, you know, what I told you is in there and please look it up for yourself. But, you
know, we just really need to come back to the basics of what it is we’re trying to fix. What is it
we’re trying to fix? And we need to do it in a consensus approach. I would think that we would
learn from history and figure out where everybody can come in agreement and ensure that this
country continues to have the largest, most complex, and safest system in the world.
MS. KAMARCK: All right. I want to turn to the audience now. And I want to start
with a Brookings scholar here, who actually has run an airline. And I just realized it when I saw
Josh in the audience. So why don’t we start with Josh right here, Josh Gotbaum?
MR. GOTBAUM: I’m John Gotbaum. I’ve spent half my career in business, half
my career in government. I watched the first air traffic corporatization, privatization debate in
the ’90s, then I got my private pilot and I joined AOPA. And then I ran Hawaiian Airlines, and
then I came back to Washington, came to Brookings, ran a couple government agencies in
between, and discovered that 22 years later, we’re still arguing about what does it take in order
for the air traffic controllers to have a modern system?
NextGen is not next-gen. NextGen is last-gen. (Laughter) And I think the
challenge here is that everybody has a legitimate reason that their compromise isn’t perfect.
But the result is that we have done nothing except let the system technologically slip back. And
as long as everybody insists on getting their perfect piece, Congress isn’t going to move.
Now, this is not just our air traffic control system. Here at Brookings we do
meeting after meeting after meeting on bridges and roads and all this stuff, et cetera. And in
every case, it is that we have stopped compromising. And so I apologize for not putting this in
the form of a question, but I think it is at what point will we say to the Congress, okay, we can
live with a compromise so that our FAA -- so our air traffic control system can join the 60 other
nations that are using what is, frankly, last decade’s technology?
MR. COON: I think Josh agrees with me. (Laughter)
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MS. KAMARCK: Trish, what do you think?
MR. COON: Go ahead.
MS. KAMARCK: Oh, okay, Jim, finish your point.
MR. COON: Well, I just wanted to say, you know, look, every major U.S. airline
in the United States -- every major U.S. airline in the United States -- albeit for three, have filed
for bankruptcy at least once. Think about that. JetBlue, Alaska, and Southwest, major airlines.
So, you know, I’ll just leave it at that.
And the fact is I went through these things of what NextGen is. These are the
top six platforms. That’s modern technology that’s out there today.
And again, we want to point to these other countries, these small, little countries.
If you look at a map of the United States it looks like a Verizon coverage map with all the air
traffic that’s going on. And you juxtapose that to Canada, you might see a little dot in all of
Canadian airspace. Trish pointed out that the size of these things don’t even compare, you
know. The airlines have, on average, every month a major computer outage through the
airlines.
So you have to ask yourself, you know, again, what is it we’re trying to fix here?
What is it we’re trying to fix? Who’s not hearing me about the technology that’s out there now
on schedule to be fully deployed by 2025? Who has not heard me about the airlines have not
equipped their fleet to use this equipment?
SECRETARY BURNLEY: The IG disagrees with you, Jim.
MR. COON: Well, I’m not sure about that. Anyway, you can go back and forth
on all these things.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: I’ll give this to you if you want.
MR. COON: When the NextGen Advisory Committee was put in place about 10
years ago, made up of stakeholders of the system, right, Trish?
MS. GILBERT: Mm-hmm.
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MR. COON: Chaired by the airlines, the IG and the GAO said this thing’s gotten
back on track. The FAA just came out with a report yesterday suggesting that. Southwest
Airlines has saved millions of dollars with Data Comm already. So, you know, it’s out there.
Look, the fundamental problem here is this is about control. This is what this is
about, it’s about controlling the system, redistributing who’s paying the revenue. I hear all these
things about funding, funding, funding, but nobody can tell me how this is going to be funded
differently. How is this system going to be funded differently? Ask yourself that.
MS. KAMARCK: All right. Let’s get some more questions on the board and we’ll
let everybody respond to whatever. Right here, the gentleman right here. Yes.
CAPTAIN MILLS: Yes, good morning, and thanks so much for an excellent
board. Just a great conversation. I’m Houston Mills with UPS. I’ve got a question.
I’m actually a captain on a 75-767 (phonetic) and certainly familiar with this
system. I can tell you from an operator’s perspective, you know, equipping our aircraft there’s a
hesitancy out there from an industry perspective to add all the equipment on because what
Trish alluded to, and that is that certainty of funding. Now, certainly, from a modernization
perspective, a long-term reauthorization bill would allow the FAA or anyone else to make the
types of investments from a long-term perspective that would encourage industry to equip.
So one of my questions, this is to the panel, certainly in the current legislation
there’s the Airport and Airways Trust Fund, obviously it’s a large percentage of how the whole
system is funded, do you see the user’s fees in this current legislation changing? Do you see
those increasing or staying the same? Because obviously, from a user perspective, that’s an
area of concern.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: Can I go at that?
MS. KAMARCK: Sure.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: Because we’ve heard over and over again that there’s
no answer to that. Well, there is an answer to it and it’s very clear, and Shuster’s made it clear
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over and over again. But Shuster does not write revenue titles of bills. The House Ways and
Means Committee does that and they have written a title. And when the bill goes to the floor
their title is ready to go and the Rules Committee of the House will insert it in and it addresses
just the issue that Jim keeps saying is not in Shuster’s bill. Well, it’s in the other language.
And the Canadian model is the model that Shuster and the Ways and Means
language follows, which is the user’s fees that passengers pay today will be phased out as the
new entity, the nonprofit corporation, substitutes equivalent user fees. The Canadians, by the
way, as Trish alluded to, have actually lowered the user fees significantly because of the
efficiencies they are gaining as they have leapfrogged us in technology in their system over the
last 25 years.
But the idea that somehow there’s not an answer to that is simply false. Shuster
has made it clear over and over again, the Ways and Means Committee staff has written the
language, there are answers to these questions.
And as to AIP, AIP would continue to be funded with a revenue stream
composed first and foremost of the fuel taxes. So, again, the Shuster the idea is actually to
increase the funding, as I think Trish mentioned, for AIP and his reauthorization bill.
I mean, there’s a point at which smoke and mirrors and reality collide. And,
again, the Canadian model is the model being followed here. You transfer the revenue flow
essentially that we as passengers are paying to the new enterprise. It substitutes initially the
same revenue flow, something called user fees instead of taxes, but designed to get you to the
same outcomes. General aviation continues to pay fuel taxes. That continues to go into the
trust fund and the airlines fuel taxes continue to go into the trust fund for AIP.
MS. KAMARCK: Okay.
MR. COON: Maybe Jim has seen the tax title, I haven’t. I suspect, though, after
my experience over the years that the tax title would continue the current funding stream to the
length of the bill and then when the new entity took over, the new entity would propose the new
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funding stream. I don’t know if there’s a target carved out --
SECRETARY BURNLEY: That’s right, that’s right.
MR. COON: -- for weight and distance, which the cargo industry would get
heavily penalized, a huge increase, but maybe Jim knows if that’s in the bill. I haven’t seen it.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: That’s not in the bill.
MR. COON: So I don’t think anybody actually has seen the Ways and Means
title, but usually they’ll reauthorize taxes and fees for the length of the authorization. After that it
becomes anybody’s guess.
MS. KAMARCK: Any other burning things or should we go to -- let’s go to
another question. Dorothy, back there.
MS. ROBYN: Thank you. Dorothy Robyn, veteran of the Clinton White House
working on this issue.
Jim Coon, you said one of the common -- or the only common denominator was
the airline industry supporting spinning off the air traffic control system. And I would say there is
another common denominator and that is GA opposition to spinning off the air traffic control
system.
And in the Al Gore bill we held general aviation harmless. General aviation, your
members would have continued to pay a de minimis fuel tax and that was for two reasons. That
was for obvious political reasons, but that was for good public policy reasons because you want
GA members, private pilots, to be -- you want to encourage them to take advantage of the
safety features of the system. So it was good politics, it was good public policy. That didn’t
matter. AOPA didn’t believe us. They opposed us.
Joe Stiglitz, who chaired the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and won
the Nobel Prize in economics, wrote about that issue in a famous paper he wrote on the private
use of public interests. And he cited that as an example of the inability of the federal
government to institute what he called “near-Pareto improvements,” policy changes that are
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good for almost everybody, but are able to be blocked by a narrow special interest group. He
cited AOPA, general aviation, and the Gore bill.
So fast forward to the Shuster bill and Chairman Shuster went us one better. He
put into statute that only a future Congress could change the hold harmless provision. So you
guys were protected by the law. Not enough.
Sam Graves, chairman of the House GA Caucus, he is now supporting Shuster
because he says Shuster gave me everything I asked for. Everything is in the bill.
What would it take -- what would it take -- for AOPA to get on board with and
cease to be a common denominator in this ongoing problem?
MR. COON: Yeah. No, Dorothy, I appreciate that. That’s some good comments
there. And I was remiss in leaving out the fact that general aviation has been consistent in their
opposition, so there’s really nothing new there.
And in the last iterations, as I recall, and in a different position when this debate
came around, general aviation was more than willing to discuss an increase in the fuel tax,
which is, in our view, a very efficient way to collect taxes. We don’t have to set up any kind of
bureaucracy or paperwork. But you’ll see some of these other countries that, you know, when
you fly over in Europe, you get charged for just about everything. Even when they train aircraft,
they don’t touch down on the runway because you get charged when you do that, so they just
kind of go down and then take off.
But, you know, I was just talking to a pilot the other day who was flying over in
Germany two months ago and received in the mail a bill for 900 euros for using the system over
there for 2 hours. So I think that, Dorothy, it is all about consensus. It’s all about risks and
unintended consequences. And I think that general aviation, I’m a little disappointed that the
individual you cited suggested that general aviation was a narrow group, but, it’s a public use
system and it works for everyone today.
Again, I come back to the issue that it’s not a funding problem. We do not have a
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funding problem at the FAA. And the consensus around which I think people can build is
removing the FAA from sequestration, pushing for biannual budgeting, procurement reform
within the FAA, contracting out maybe some other items of the FAA, and moving in that
direction.
Again, the NextGen Advisory Committee to which I referred to made up of all the
stakeholders, they built consensus and they prioritized the NextGen and modernization of our
system and it has worked well for 10 years according to the IG and according to the GAO. So,
you know, there’s always management faults in every business that I’ve been aware of. So can
things always get better? Yeah, let’s take a look at how we can make things better, but this
whole thing needs to be consensus-based, and there is no consensus on privatizing our air
traffic control system.
MS. KAMARCK: Trish, did you want to say something on this?
MS. GILBERT: You know, I want to go back to a point made over here, which
was we’re still missing place after 20, 25 years. My entire career this has been discussion
about what do we do with the air traffic control system certainly as we watch other countries do
different things?
I would say that, you know, NATCA’s position is very clear. This is the bill before
us. We support it because it meets our four core principles: it would maintain a safe and
efficient system; it would maintain a secure relationship between the employer and the
employees that safeguard that system; it allows for stability in funding; it addresses integration
of new users, modernization of not just equipment and technology, but our facilities, as well.
We believe it meets those four core principles. The status quo does not. We don’t think a for-
profit entity would do that.
So we are ready to have dialogue whether it’s (inaudible) act or are we going to
fall back to something else at some point? Maybe. Dedicated funding stream, multiyear
appropriations, carve out of sequester, I don’t know what the next conversation’s going to be.
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It’s going to depend, I think, on the next make-up of Congress if this doesn’t move through the
House and then we compromise with the Senate. But certainly I think we need to get to a point
where we really identify the things that need to be fixed.
And, again, it’s not the funding. It’s the stability of the funding. The appropriators
do an incredible job writing very, very good bills, addressing the needs of the system.
Unfortunately, those bills that are written by the appropriators are not the bills that get signed
into law. We see continuing resolutions instead of those bills, so.
MS. KAMARCK: Okay. Let’s take a couple more questions. Yes, right here.
MR. LEOCHA: Hi, I’m Charlie Leocha and I run an organization called Travelers
United. We’re the largest consumer group in D.C. focused on travel.
And, Mr. Coons, when I listen to you, I can hear the apologists for horse and
buggies fighting the introduction of the internal combustion engine and the automobiles. You
know, people are being killed. We need to carry a lantern in front of all of the vehicles to let
people know what’s happening and there’s danger, danger, danger.
And then the other thing you talk about a lot is we have to talk together. We
have to come up with some sort of consensus. Well, I’ve been working in Washington since
about 2009, and back in the old days of the Oberstar regimes in Washington, I would listen to
the -- we’ve had these discussions over and over again about funding and about different ways
of getting things done. And so far, we haven’t had any way -- any movement forward. And we
keep doing the same thing and we keep thinking we’re going to get new results. And I think
Einstein once said that was the symptom of madness.
And so what we need to do is somewhere we have to change the system. And
I’m not an apologist for the airlines. Everybody who knows me knows that I probably fight them
as viciously as anybody else. But in this particular case, we need to come up with a system
where we have some kind of steady of funding and we can move it out of the Appropriations
Committee. And as you say, there are lots of different reasons -- or not Appropriations, but out
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of the Commerce Committee and T&I Committee, and then the Appropriations Committee come
into it. They hate to see that much money just disappear from their control. We’ve got
government unions that hate to see power disappear from the government union population as
it goes off into a private area. There are a lot of different factors here.
But I am just trying to figure out that after your position for, how many years, 20-
something years in Washington you’ve discussed this over and over again, what can we do to
move forward? And you’ll just say, okay, it’s time we move forward. Because we can’t keep
going the same way we’re going right now. We have to change something. And right now, this
gives us an opportunity to move forward. This iteration of the bill is far, far superior to the one
that we had previous to this to the point where my organization has come out in favor of this
because now we have less airline control over the board.
And I’m just trying to find out, you know, they kind of worked out with me things
that they would be willing to change, and with other stakeholders. And they’ve been trying to
work with you and your group as stakeholders. I’m just trying to find out -- we’ve got a
disconnect somewhere.
And we all understand that it’s a very safe system, but so was the system of the
horse and buggies. We need to move into the future and right now I sort of see this battle
seems to be businesspeople and the general aviation people trying to hold everything back. It’s
like holding back the tide. And what can we do to make you guys happy so we could move
forward in the next six months?
MS. KAMARCK: Good. I think, Jim, this is to you.
MR. COON: Thank you for your comments. I would say strike Title 2 and move
a long-term FAA reauthorization bill. And we could sit down in a room and we could talk about
removing sequestration, we could talk about consolidation of facilities, we could talk about
procurement reform, and all of those things.
I think people need to understand, you know, in 1920, we navigated by bonfire
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with the Postal Service. We have come a long, long way since then. So I’m not certain what
you’re trying to fix.
I think I pointed out the fact that we don’t have a funding problem. The fact is
that over the last 10 years the NextGen program has been on track and on budget, and that’s in
collaboration with the CEOs of the airline industry and their operational people. They haven’t
complained about this for 10 years. Then you get somebody in Washington who decides they
want to go back to this apple again and fight the same fight that has happened repeatedly over
and over and over again, I don’t get that. No one came to me, no one came to my boss, no one
came to us and said what is it that you want? We didn’t see any bill till it was introduced.
So, you know, the process, you’d think we would learn from history. That’s all
I’ve got to say on that.
MS. KAMARCK: One last question. We have time for one last question. Oh,
yes, right here. Yes, the young man up front here.
SPEAKER: All right. So thank you to the panel. This is primarily for the
proponents of the bill. From my very brief Internet research it seems like the media isn’t very
sympathetic to your arguments and, predictably, Democrats are painting it as, you know, this is
an effort by private interests to take control of safety. So how do you anticipate navigating the
political difficulties, especially if it gets to the Senate?
SECRETARY BURNLEY: It’s a very tough -- that’s a good question -- it’s a very
tough challenge. As Elaine said at the outset, she has the scars from the early ’90s --
MS. KAMARCK: Yeah, I know it’s a tough challenge.
SECRETARY BURNLEY: -- when it was a Democratic proposal to remove air
traffic control from the federal government. We’re talking about, to put it differently, Mr. Jarvis
referred to some government unions, obviously NATCA’s a very important major exception. By
far the biggest union is the FAA, but there are smaller unions that are opposed to it. You’re
talking about moving over 30,000 people out of the federal government. I mean, I have said in
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other settings this would be the biggest systemic government reform since right after 9-11 we
created the Department of Homeland Security, in terms of a change in the government plan of
organization. That is hard by definition.
And all you can do is continue to work member by member in the House to see if
you can build a majority. That is what the Republican leadership is doing and they have had
some success in finding some Democrats, individual members, that will support the bill if it
comes to the floor. They’d like to have more, frankly. And it’s unfortunate that the ranking
Democrat on the committee, Mr. DeFazio, decided quite a long time ago, last year, to go into
sort of all-out opposition because it should not be a partisan debate. I think it’s a good
government issue and it should be viewed that way. And you can have differences about the
proposal, but there’s nothing really that ought to be partisan about it.
As to the Senate, I mean, that’s an existential question on all issues, it’s not just
this one. And so if I were smart enough to answer that successfully, why would I be hanging
around at The Brookings Institution this morning? (Laughter) I’d be on some beach somewhere
because I would have gotten a patent and I’d be, you know, rolling in the big bucks. So I don’t
know the answer to that on any issue right now.
But I do know that this is the right thing to do, that we have a chairman in the
House who has worked very hard on it for two years. He greatly improved this year’s bill over
last year’s bill. He has got widespread support and diverse support from the major passenger
group, from the major union, from big and small airlines, from the cargo industry, from ALPA,
the major pilots union. All of these diverse interests have come together behind this bill and we
just keep working on it and see if we can get there.
MS. GILBERT: Can I make a point to his question?
MS. KAMARCK: Yes, go ahead.
MS. GILBERT: We all know that the media needs headlines that are going to
capture the reader and get them to read the article, so I think when you start from a system that
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we all agree is something we’re all very proud of, is a very complex, very safe system. So when
you start from there, you say then why change? And then it’s easier for those in opposition to
throw safety issues at it; the end of a community in the system, meaning general aviation; or,
even worse, just a couple days which I alluded to earlier, which would impact all of government
programs and be the end of the world as we know it. So it’s easier to get people to read when
those headlines can really capture what the opposition would like to say because we’re starting
from a safe point, a safe, great system.
However, my concern is we need to sustain that. And what we don’t need to do
is wait for a crisis to then now us, the people that support reform because we think it’s the right
thing to do, wait for that crisis that drives the media and the public to we got to fix it, look how
broken it is. Let’s not wait till we get to broken. Let’s work on those that realize we can’t sustain
what’s happening today, status quo is not working, what is next? And there’s a lot of ideas on
“what next” is. And we’re all on board on having that discussion to get to “next” because the
system is something that we all need to be proud of and continue to maintain the integrity of our
-- you know, it’s a treasure for the United States economy, for this country, and we just need to
figure this out.
MS. KAMARCK: Well, we’ve come to our stop time. I want to thank Trish and
Eric and Jim and Jim. This has been a great panel. I think we have a good sense of the
entirety of this issue. I wish all of you luck because you’re all doing very important jobs in trying
to improve the system. And thank you very much, it was a great audience, too. (Applause)
* * * * *
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CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC
I, Carleton J. Anderson, III do hereby certify that the forgoing electronic
file when originally transmitted was reduced to text at my direction; that said transcript is a true
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